“To Cook or Not to Cook?”That is the question resting heavy on my mind these days. For those of you who know me two questions might come up when I talk about my love for the kitchen; “LOL Sarah? Cooking?” or “Wait…I knew you cooked, but culinary school?” The latter would be more of a question from the friends of mine acquired within the last 5 years or so. It’s amazing how you can simply fall in love with something so deeply and quickly. My love for food has always been there, but my passion to prepare it has slowly been evolving over the last few years, and I’m enjoying every moment of it.

I always dreamed of being able to use my talents to make a living. I love to sing more than anything in the world, and cooking is quickly rising in the ranks. I was always a bit hesitant to go to school for music. I didn’t have a passion to teach and I always felt that if singing was my calling, I would do it with or without a degree. I seem to view cooking in a completely opposite way. The culinary world is so vast and the skills to be learned can be difficult and complex…something I feel going to school for would be a great benefit. So the question..to cook or not to cook…for a living? Continue reading →

This past weekend I attended my first class at the Central Market Cooking School! Instead of diving head first into group cooking I thought I would start with my technique first. I have to give myself kudos for how far I’ve come with my knife skills in the kitchen. Ever since I received my first set of cutlery as a wedding gift, I have slowly but surely improved. The first hurdle was overcoming the fear. Something about a large, shiny, and deadly object lying in my shaky hands freaked me out just a bit. Prep-time for me was like cooking an entire meal in itself. Needless to say, the simple task of chopping an onion felt like an eternity. Once I was able to grip my knife with confidence I was on my way!

Now, by no means am I anywhere close to chopping like a culinary expert, but I am leaps and bounds better than I was. Along with my new found technique has come a few scary confrontations with my trusty knife; resulting in a little bit of blood and minor yelps. I have to blame my lack of proper instruction on my accidents. So, I set out to learn the right steps before delving any deeper into the culinary world. Continue reading →

I can’t have a food blog and not talk about my favorite food in the world! Well, as the title says, life gets a whole lot better with a little bit of Tex-Mex. It makes me happy just typing the name. 🙂

I have to preface this blog by saying that I love ALL types of mexican food and, in my personal opinion, it doesn’t get any better than the Mexican food in Texas. Since I can remember I have always been drawn to chips, salsa, and of course…Queso! I mean what’s not to love about a big pot of melted cheese with some spicy beef, hot peppers, and roasted tomatoes thrown into the mix. My obsession started young and I have to blame my Okie/Texan family for introducing it to me early on. Half of my family is from Oklahoma and half from Texas..it makes for a fun football season let me tell ya!

My first real memory of Mexican food started with my grandfather’s salsa. Anytime I would ever go over to see my grandparents the first thing I would do is go to the fridge and pull out the salsa. He would even hide it sometimes because, once the boys found where it was hidden, it would be gone in a matter of minutes. For years I couldn’t find a salsa as good as his until I finally tasted my big brother’s recipe.

Side Note: As I mentioned in the “This is Me” section, my father is an amazing cook, but he’s not the only one. My grandfather and brother can really hold their own in the kitchen.

I’m sure every cook has at least one, or many, memorable disasters stashed away in their memory, and it is no different for me. I’ve never been prone to burning things; my problem was simply misreading recipes. With the internet and all the available sources, there really isn’t a reason to not understand what the recipe calls for. Just a simple click on Google can answer almost any culinary question in existence (that easy right). Well, call it a case of stubbornness or just shear naivety, but I didn’t reach out to anything but my limited food encyclopedia stashed in my brain on this incident.

A few years back when I really started to enjoy and get in to cooking, I wanted to impress my boyfriend at the time with my new skill. So I sought out to find an impressive recipe that would showcase my new hobby. Continue reading →